In the Radošina Naïve Theatre a very original drama appeared that speaks about today`s people: of their worries, joys, bitterness and hopes much more than so-called "serious" contemporary drama. The author of these strange, bitter comedies is Stanislav Štepka. He views his contemporaries with merciless curiosity and finds
a lot of unattractive features in them. However, he is also full of wise tolerance and pardons them a lot. He is able to capture in jewel-like, true, vivid detail, to "overhear" a phrase or a bizarre mixture of village dialect and city jargon.
Martin Porubjak
Whenever the founder of the Radošina Naïve Theatre writes about the beginnings of his theatre he never forgets to mention the Semafor. He acknowledges his debt to our theatre the way we acknowledge ours to the Liberated Theatre (Osvobozené divadlo). To put it simply, we all acknowledge some debts. The Liberated Theatre mentioned the brothers Fratellini and the silent movies. Whom the Fratellinis mentioned, I don`t know, but I guess they went back somewhere for sure. It feels warm to know that my work was good for somebody, one who didn`t imitate us because he was inventive enough himself. A question crops up: How come that Štepka mentions our Semafor as the source of his own original and inimitable theatre? I think we could find the key in our view of humour. At least one of the keys. The humour of Semafor and of the Radošina theatre are not much alike, but I know and have found out that we laugh at the same things, Stano and I.
Jiří Suchý
